Entertainment Centers and the Quest for Transformation in the Periphery

Abstract

The core of the entertainment industry in almost every urban area across the globe is by historical evolution or deliberate public policy lodged in the city center. Times Square in New York and the West End of London are the most iconic of these centers, but entertainment has evolved into new sports arena formats such as Amsterdam ArenA and L.A. Live. Some of these centers develop in the core of cities, yet others evolve on the periphery of a center city. In this quest for transformation, we ask, can contemporary entertainment-oriented transformative projects create “place” and are some locations better suited for such projects? In this paper, we explain how concentrated entertainment centers develop in the United States through the interplay of public policy and market economics, we present a typology for organizing different entertainment clusters, and through a case study of L.A. Live! we demonstrate how Los Angeles created an entertainment district from scratch on the downtown periphery. We argue that these projects can deliver on the promise of transformation with the right conditions and resources nurtured by local planning cultures and favorable markets. We further suggest that the downtown periphery in central cities is well suited for such entertinament-driven intiatives. The dispersal or concentration of entertainment brings nuance to the “urban periphery” conversation where the periphery is not distinct or separate from the urban; rather, the idea of “urban peripheries” encapsulates those places that fall “within” and “outside” traditional conceptions of the urban boundary.

Notes

1 Sports stadia have been the focus of numerous studies seeking to evaluate the economic return involved for the owners and cities providing financial support. The results have been consistently negative: baseball parks seldom, if ever pay their own way or create real economic development (Baim 1994; Noll, Zimbalist 1997; Nunn, Rosentraub 1997), though downtown locations may create more positive impacts that other locations (Melaniphy 1996), all cited in Newsome and Comer 2000. Empirical analysis by Newsome and Comer showed that the suburbanization trend long associated with the location of U.S. major sporting venue construction to be reversing itself, with resurgence in downtown venues. Nelson's analysis of the location of major league stadiums in twenty-five U.S. metropolitan areas (2002) showed downtown (including nearby “edge” areas) to be the best location for professional sports stadiums in terms of capturing share of economic activity; suburban locations were associated with the least amount of economic activity.

2 Based on empirical analysis of the entertainment industry across U.S. metropolitan areas from 1970 to 2000, Florida and his colleagues suggest that geographic economies of scope are triggered only in large cities and regions where a certain minimum scale can be reached. In the U.S. they found that entertainment sector as a whole and its key subsectors are significantly concentrated in two superstar cities – New York and Los Angeles – more so than their scale effects, measured by population, would suggest.

3 Drawing on the 2012 United States Census Bureau, we examined the following principal cities in the top 30 metropolitan statistical regions: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, Riverside, Phoenix, Detroit, Seattle, Minneapolis, San Diego, Tampa, St. Louis, Baltimore, Denver, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Portland (OR), San Antonio, Orlando, Sacramento, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Las Vegas.

4 Most principal cities that we examined had several types of entertainment districts that fall into our composite. Therefore, we suggest that it is important to look at the portfolio of projects that a city holds. It also provides additional insight into where there different projects are organized spatially throughout the city.

Additional information

Dr. Lynne Sagalyn is the Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate and Director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia University School of Business. She received a PhD in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from Rutgers University.

Dr. Amanda Johnson Ashley is an Assistant Professor in Community and Regional Planning at Boise State University where she studies urban development and revitalization. She received a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota.